Advice on Biological Natural Sciences Personal Statements

General tipsIt’s important that you don’t do too much. Better to a few things well than spread yourself too thin so that you’re overly grilled in interview. My recommendation is pick maybe 3 themes that you find interesting and build some wanky story around them e.g. I watched this video, which encouraged me to read this article, then this book, and had this naive yet fairly nuanced revelation. Further, it’s good to try and tie these themes to what you’re doing in your life (subjects wise, or otherwise e.g. internships, placements, maybe extra curriculars) and with each other. NewsThe easiest way you can get a sense of what the current debates within a field is to look at the news section of journals, or look at magazines or “the” news. Best to flick through stuff and wait till something catches your eye. Pick a few things and summarise (i) what they say and (ii) why you think it’s interesting. (ii) is far more important than (i) r.e. PS but (i) is useful in interview when they make sure you actually understand. https://www.nature.com/newshttps://www.nature.com/research-highlights *** this one seems particularly good.https://www.nature.com/research-analysisPodcastsI listened to the nature podcast regularly before applying and highly recommend it. Basically these give a very digestible summary of what’s going on in science. Includes physics which I suggest you skip unless you have time to kill which you probably don’t. If you find something that interests you, look online at the articles associated with the topic. There will be a good news piece of review available.https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=nature-podcasthttps://www.cell.com/podcast Reviews These provide a more meaty introduction to particular areas. This may be too ambitious considering you probably won’t understand what’s going on. If you find you don’t understand the content, stop and move on. Mentioning one review would be very impressive I reckon but you would need to know the subject content back to front. For future life, these are excellent resources. https://www.cell.com/trends/cell-biology/homehttps://www.cell.com/trends/neurosciences/homehttps://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/homehttps://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/homehttps://www.cell.com/trends/cancer/homeetc. there are more cell ones. https://www.nature.com/reviews/index.html (these are very good).BooksHave a look at the books I read before interview. I read far too much which probably wasn’t that helpful. However if you enjoy reading these pop-science books then by all means go ahead. I reckon time is better spent on the above, but books are still useful resources. If you are to read any book from now read Carey’s Epigenetics Revolution (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Epigenetics-Revolution-Rewriting-Understanding-Inheritance/dp/1848313470). Brilliant book and really great for linking different areas of biology, even given what seems like a fairly narrow focus. Potential interesting topicsEpigeneticsEpigenetics is “the study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself” which sounds rather boring but is actually super interesting. Read Carey’s book to get a grasp, which lists a whole pile of really interesting case studies. Epigenetics, to me, comes in two halves: (i) epigenetic inheritance which is the transfer of differential gene expression motifs between generations (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_epigenetic_inheritance); and (ii) epigenetic regulation of gene expression (more retracted version of the above), which is more biochemical in character describing the molecular marks and mechanisms that underpin differential gene expression given different stimuli, or within different cell types etc. This is a super interesting field: recently it has received a LOT of attention. Consider: Relationship between epigenetic inheritance and evolution — how do such phenomena affect Darwinian natural selection given this inheritance is Lamarckian in character when our modern conception of natural selection rests on notions of inheritance that are more Mendelian. Have a little think about this — a lot is written on it.Nature/nurture debate. Consider epigenetics in relation to the nature nurture debate — to what extent can we attribute certain traits to nature (inheritance) or to nurture (environment). Is this dichotomy sensible? Nature via nurture is quite a decent book here, one that I read before interview, which whilst not mentioning epigenetics in any great detail has an important thesis: that the divide of nature and nurture is artificial; you can’t have one without the other. Neuroscience. In particular, consider alternative splicing (google it, though you have probably heard about it). Dscam in Drosophila provides an interesting example — 20k isoforms and 1 gene; different isoforms in different neurones, maybe enabling specificity (look at wikipedia for Dscam; or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2691713/). Genomics and its problemsGenomics was a booming field 20 years ago with the HGP but has not brought the hope and wonder that Bill Clinton promised when pumping millions at it. Whilst it has proved a valuable resource as well transforming technology and practice, knowing the sequence of an animal’s genome cannot tell us everything there is to know about the animal (cross reference with nature, nurture debate). From genomics arises some interesting debates, some technical some more philosophical, about where the secrets lie r.e. diversity, complexity, and medical targets. (One good book that I read was Genome by Matt Ridley, although there must be a more up to date book…)Epigenetics may provide some answers for the c-value paradox (google this), which is basically the scream of bemusement by genome scientists when they found that there were only about 20k genes in our genome i.e. not enough for complexity we see (such a statement is contentious but anyway…). Epigenetics asserts that it’s not how many genes you have but how you use them that is key. Alternative splicing (which is not directly epigenetics) solves the problem in part by increasing the number of protein product variants i.e. reducing the paucity of molecular complexity (maybe millions of isoforms instead of 10s of 1000s of genes), but is not the solution. Complexity seems to arise from differential gene expression as controlled by epigenetic processes (chromatin remodelling, DNA methylation, small RNAs etc), as well as non-linear interactions between proteins e.g. in transcription factor cascades (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_regulatory_network). Some interesting things to consider further: How is a gene defined? Estimates of gene numbers have fallen since the 00s from about 100k to 20k — why was this the case (look online; stuff about pseudogenes). I’m really interested in the way that data scientists write algorithms that essentially define what a gene is. I think this area has interesting philosophical ramifications. You could probably write something about how the concept of the gene has changed over time, though this is rather cliche. What is interesting, however, are some recent advances. Firstly, the realm of smallORFs (open reading frames i.e. ‘genes’), which are essentially small protein coding sequences that were not picked up by traditional bioinformatic techniques which have to set a minimum size of a gene to screen off sequences that could have arisen by chance (i.e. are not meaningful). Google this for more detail (search “small ORFs” or “small proteome”). Secondly is the very recent re-opening of the gene number debate (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05462-w). Definitely read this for your own interest.Genes ‘for’ cancer, depression etc. r.e. Daily Mail. Reading tabloid headlines, you will have no doubt read many stories about genes ‘for’ diseases, disorders etc. These are fallacious on two accounts. Firstly the genes aren’t ‘for’ the disease, rather it is their mutant form (fairly trivial stuff). More interestingly, such stories often allude to whole genome association studies (GWAS) which determine the covariants genetic variants (i.e. alleles) and susceptibility of disease. These have their own problems, statistical and more biological. E.g. they don’t show disease causation, merely covariance. They don’t show the pathway that is aberrant in the disease. E.g. given the statistics (look into this in detail, if you’re interested), many associations may be spurious etc. etc. You could then link this to services such as 23andMe (google this). I’m pretty sure there’s some stuff in the A level syllabus that relates to this. It would be interesting to contrast this content with maybe the discovery of certain high penetrance diseases (i.e. if person has gene x they have a high chance of getting disease y) e.g. cystic fibrosis, duchenne muscular dystrophy etc.Related to the above are ‘epigenetic’ diseases, of which you will find more about in Carey’s book. Have a look into diseases such as Angelman syndrome, Silver-Russell Syndrome etc. etc. These have interesting, through severely deformed phenotypes, and their inheritance pattern is fascinating. Think about the relation of such diseases to the techniques of genomics — would a GWAS be able to pick up more subtle, lower penetrance epigenetic diseases?Synthetic biology and genetic engineeringSynthetic biology is a growing field, a research area that attempts to produce living systems ‘from scratch’ (though not really, but anyway). It adopts an engineering approach to biological systems, looking at the functional components of organisms in an attempt to dismantle the machine and then reconstruct it. In building from scratch, synthetic biologists reckon, one understands the biology much better. Just saw this on amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07DPQ5QZG/ref=s9_acsd_newrz_hd_bw_b3s68_c_x_w?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-8&pf_rd_r=EZJDYQ691VZNNH3Q3ZX8&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=fcb74622-e1a1-58da-b3ab-4808c157f399&pf_rd_i=922940 which looks very very good, though I haven’t read it. This would be a very interesting thing to put in a PS, something most people wouldn’t really be thinking about at this stage. This wikipedia page — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology — looks pretty useful. Things to look at include BioBricks, DNA synthesis from scratch (sounds simple, actually quite tricky, but would be understandable given your knowledge), and CRISPR as technologies. The last one is very very popular at the moment extending beyond SynthBio and consequently many will be writing about it in their PSs, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Think of something interesting to say if you do include it. Other things I find interesting in this area is the use of DNA as data storage e.g. someone put a movie into a DNA sequence. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5623675/pdf/fbioe-05-00057.pdf Basically all digital files are strings of 1s and 0s which can be encoded into a 4-bit sequence ATCG which can then be produced by sequencing by synthesis. This has interesting applications for the future of computers and hard-drives if sequencing continues to fall in price (or maybe it doesn’t, what do you think)?You could go hard on CRISPR: lots of interesting things to say. Gene drive is one, and maybe could consider ethical implications there when applied to thwarting malaria (https://www.nature.com/news/gene-drive-mosquitoes-engineered-to-fight-malaria-1.18858). Others are in the field of regenerative medicine — taking samples from diseased patients, doing some genetic editing with CRISPR to turn the cells back to wild type for the relevant locus, growing new organs, and transplanting back. This overlaps with ….Regenerative medicineI’ve sent a little summary of regenerative medicine over facebook, which is it’s own topic and is super super interesting, but read further. Also look into IPS cells, which you may or may not have covered but are literally all over the internet (got Nobel in 2009 or something). http://emboj.embopress.org/content/33/5/409.long Relevance to therapyhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4664309/pdf/pnas.201508520.pdf Haven’t read this but looks aightRead wikipedia page https://www.nature.com/search?q=regenerative%20medicine&order=date_desc&article_type=news%2Ccomments-and-opinion%2Cnews-and-viewshttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0118-4https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd.2018.91https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05278-8https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-018-0114-8https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4118etc. etc. etc. Note the longer link above: I went on nature and searched the key-word, then put in ‘News’ ‘News and Views’ and ‘Comment’, which selects readable documents basically. Do this for whatever you’re interested in.